Housing protest surrounds Vancouver Olympic celebration site with message for Stephen Harper

First time in my life, I am hanging on to my studio enjoying every minute i can sit down, fighting questionable imminent homelessness.

Unbelievable Canada..!!

In the days of nation-building, Canada had a tax system that was amongst the most progressive anywhere.

"In 1949, PIT [personal income tax] rates ranged from 15 to 84 percent and there were 17 brackets. In 1994, the range was 26.35 to 46.4 percent and there were 3 brackets." In 2009, there were four federal brackets: 15 percent, 22 percent, 26 percent, and 29 percent on an income over $126,264.

Throughout the ten year period from 2000 to 2010 there have been huge tax cuts, both personal and corporate ($100 billion over five years by Paul Martin -- and a further $100 billion, including GST, by the Harper government) there has been an aggressive rejection of any criticism of this gutting of the federal purse. Anyone talking about tax increases would expect to be immediately attacked and ridiculed.

Young people entering the job market today earn less money than their parents did a generation ago, according to new census data released Thursday by Statistics Canada.

In fact, it's a trend that began a quarter century ago and doesn't appear to be slowing down – especially for young men entering the workforce.

Across all age groups, median salaries for full-time workers have changed little in 25 years. Workers today make, on average, a mere $53 more than they did in 1980, when adjusted for inflation, according to the census.

That stagnation mainly afflicted the middle class. The top earners in Canada saw their wages increase 16.4 per cent since 1980, while the bottom rung saw a 20-per-cent decrease.

For the 25- to 29-year-old group, it's also a story of decreasing fortunes.

In 1980, median earnings for full-time male workers in that age group – the time when people are generally starting their careers – were the equivalent of $43,767 in 2005 wages. By the year 2000, they dipped to $38,110 and in 2005 they stood at $37,680.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/Census/article/420331

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.

The bank's unprecedented reach and power have enabled it to turn all of America into a giant pumpanddump scam, manipulating whole economic sectors for years at a time, moving the dice game as this or that market collapses, and all the time gorging itself on the unseen costs that are breaking families everywhere — high gas prices, rising consumer credit rates, half eaten pension funds, mass layoffs, future taxes to pay off bailouts. All that money that you're losing, it's going somewhere, and in both a literal and a figurative sense, Goldman Sachs is where it's going: The bank is a huge, highly sophisticated engine for converting the useful, deployed wealth of society into the least useful, most wasteful and insoluble substance on Earth — pure profit for rich individuals.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29127316/the_great_american_b...

Thank you, commentators, above, for showing that the money Canadians can easily afford to invest in early childhood care, housing, health and dental care, education, etc. is being bled off to further enrich the millionaires and billionaires of our country and offshore, and the corporate coffers. Lacking these excellent investments in the social welfare of Canadians, the loss of productivity and resultant social costs such as from increased crime, insurance, policing, courts, hospitals, government, social workers, welfare, etc. far exceeds the cost of preventing these problems at the get go.

Well done, protestors! You found a creative way to get your message on poverty and homelessness across, and an incredibly important message it is indeed.

Human beings need a home, security, rights, nutritious food, education, health care, and that's about it! Give them even a rudimentary but adequate version of those simple and relatively inexpensive things, and voila - like magic - they generally take off. Because people are actually designed to enjoy being productive, happy members of society. Deprive people of any of these basic requirements of life, and people fall apart, subject to misery, discomfort, fear, sleep deprivation, stress, malnutrition, disease, etc. Under these circumstances, they often turn to drug abuse, prostitution and crime to try to ameliorate their misery.
The cost of all this drug abuse, crime, disease, mental illness and misery is huge - much higher than just providing all the citizens with their basic needs so that they have a necessary foundation for getting on with a happy and productive, fulfilling life.

It is bad economics not to provide every citizen in society with their fundamental requirements for health and personal development from the moment of conception.

And on top of this, it is not the loving, responsible, sane thing to do either, when our society could easily afford to end all this misery and provide joy to the lives of millions.

Our priorities are wrong. Our politicians are the wrong people. They represent the interests of the largest multinational corporations. This is very bad for the people of Canada. Canadians, please reflect on this for a minute. We need new politicians. We need you - normal, healthy, caring people to get involved in a political party and make it a better party. Or run as an independent candidate for office and speak up. Or support someone else who is running as an independent. Whatever in your analysis will be the most productive way to get involved in the political life of your country.

Are you proud of Canada because some Canadian athletes did well? Are you proud of Canada because our troops are willing to kill and die or be horribly injured to defend it? Then you should be willing to participate in the political life of your country. Find meaningful, independent sources of information like Agora, the Tyee, GlobalResearch.ca, etc. Try to develop informed opinions about a few topics. Then contribute your time, energy, enthusiasm, and ideas to making Canada a better place, a place with more happiness and fewer miserable, frustrated lives.

The current crop of politicians will never do this, because that is not what they are paid to do by their taskmasters - the big banking, armaments, oil, pharmaceuticals, agribusiness and mining interests. But please get involved. This is the only way the situation will change, so that we as Canadians can be proud of more than our athletes, but can also be proud of the true Olympic spirit that moves through us all - for the betterment of our entire society and the world.

Take a dead milltown up north and move all the homeless there.... you do NOT deserve to live in expensive areas.... and just try taxing us who do well at 80% .... we have the power and money to get who we want elected .. money talks ... end of that story.... and stop pumping out kids if you can't afford it... the rest of Canada shouldn't have to pay to raise your children.... if you can't afford a decent place to live why would you spend money on a computer or the internet.... I hate the Olympics... but I hate losers who always have a hand out cuz they are too stupid or lazy to take the advantages of getting ahead in the best country in the world.. you clowns wouldnt last 6 months in the States... or a weekend in India or Pakistan... and maybe 6 hours in Somalia....

I think that they would be happier somewhere like:

the States, India, Pakistan, Somalia... but then again I wouldn't want to put that kind of burden on anyone else.

Take Baffin Island and move all the corporate welfare cases up there.... you do NOT deserve to live with self respecting Canadians

killtheindustry; your comments would be painful if it wasn't for the inherent contradictions in your argument. If you really are 'doing as well' as you claim (which I tend to doubt) your taxes obviously aren't high enough if you still feel that you have enough money to buy off politicians and voters.

@killtheindustry, and who do you think pays for children's education ( I Hope you don't have any), or your Healthcare? All of us pay taxes, and yes even those who can't work, we pay as well, every time we buy something , we pay taxes on taxable products; no matter where B.C. gets it's tax dollars from , it's all divvied out to social, health, education programs that WE ARE ALL ENTITLED TO!!!!!!!
And who are you to say some people don't deserve to live where they choose? Would you say the same thing to an elderly woman in a wheelchair? A handicapped paraplegic who lost his legs on a job? A mentally disabled person tossed out of Riverview to fend for themselves?
Your comment I equate to this famous line from Dickens "A Christmas Carol" : Are there no Prison's? Are there no work houses; get your head out of the Dark Ages, and grow some compassion

@killtheindustry, and you WOULD NOT LAST A NIGHT on the streets of the D.T.E.S.